The two recently stated Official reasons the United States is taking Military action in Iraq, are:
1) To protect 'American diplomats, civilians, personnel, facilities' that are at risk there.
2) "[T]o help avert a massacre" ... "to prevent a potential act of genocide."
Barack Obama's full statement on approving airstrikes in Iraq
by: DSWright, telegraph.co.uk -- August 8, 2014
[...]
First, I said in June -- as the terrorist group ISIL began an advance across Iraq -- that the United States would be prepared to take targeted military action in Iraq if and when we determined that the situation required it. In recent days, these terrorists have continued to move across Iraq, and have neared the city of Erbil, where American diplomats and civilians serve at our consulate and American military personnel advise Iraqi forces.
To stop the advance on Erbil, I’ve directed our military to take targeted strikes against ISIL terrorist convoys should they move toward the city. We intend to stay vigilant, and take action if these terrorist forces threaten our personnel or facilities anywhere in Iraq, including our consulate in Erbil and our embassy in Baghdad. [...]
Second, at the request of the Iraqi government -- we’ve begun operations to help save Iraqi civilians stranded on the mountain. [...]
In recent days, Yezidi women, men and children from the area of Sinjar have fled for their lives. And thousands -- perhaps tens of thousands -- are now hiding high up on the mountain, with little but the clothes on their backs. They’re without food, they’re without water. People are starving. And children are dying of thirst. Meanwhile, ISIL forces below have called for the systematic destruction of the entire Yezidi people, which would constitute genocide. So these innocent families are faced with a horrible choice: descend the mountain and be slaughtered, or stay and slowly die of thirst and hunger.
[...]
[emphasis added]
And what are those 'American personnel and facilities' doing there in Iraq -- still?
Well, besides 'training and advising' the Iraqi troops, they are protecting the U.S. interests in Iraq's special resources, destined for export ... at a corporate profit ...
Iraq Watch: U.S. airstrikes hit Islamic State artillery; top Iraqi cleric blames bickering politicians for crisis
by Lindsay Wise and Mitchell Prothero, miamiherald.com -- August 8, 2014
[...]
International oil companies, who maintain a huge presence in Irbil [Erbil; Arbil], have put their employees on the highest alert as the prepare evacuation plans from the capital.
Exxon and Chevron both had restricted their employees’ movements over the past few days, with most confined to their homes under heavy security.
[...]
Oh,
those U.S. personnel. The ones with the bright red rhetorical line drawn around them. So it goes,
reason number one why we defend 'our interests' in Iraq.
What about reason number 2, that 'potential genocide' in Iraq, that the U.S. suddenly finds the urgent need to address, to try to relieve?
Once again, it looks like it has its roots in religious violence. Haven't we seen enough death and despair in the name of Religion?
When does the Madness stop? When does the 'Bizzaro-World' Peace, ever actually arrive? When does such religious-born hatred ever end?
Why the US is bombing ISIS in Iraq
by Zack Beauchamp, vox.com -- August 8, 2014
[...] Yazidi religion is often described as a blend between Zoroastrianism and Islam, particularly mystical Sufi Islam, but ISIS calls them "devil-worshippers."
The largest concentration of Yazidis in the world is in northern Iraq, where ISIS recently made significant inroads -- including into a heavily Yazidi town called Sinjar. ISIS has made special efforts to slaughter them. In fleeing ISIS, between 10,000 and 40,000 Yazidis from Sinjar and nearby environs have taken refuge on Mount Sinjar, an adjacent mountain, where they do not have regular access to food or water. They are trapped between starvation and ISIS, which controls every road out.
[...]
The planned humanitarian airdrops are explicitly designed to help the trapped Yazidis. Still, airdrops alone may not be enough. One analysis suggests that "24 C-130 transport aircraft flying round trips every day would be necessary to keep the Yazidi supplied with water" -- and that doesn't even include food. US airstrikes will attempt to break ISIS' encirclement of the mountain.
[...]
How many religious refugees are trapped in those Mountains?
[up to 40 thousand.]
How many transport airdrops are needed daily to meet their water needs? [24 C-130 cargo planes.]
How many transport airdrops have been made to meet their current humanitarian needs? [one C-17 and two C-130 cargo planes.]
That's our half-hearted (1/8-th hearted) reason number two for why we defend 'our interests' in Iraq.
When does the wide-spread humanitarian need, inflicted in the name of Religion, ever in reality get actually met? In some ways, the facade of humanitarian aid is worse than no aid at all.
Especially if it results in the world's think-tanks thinking, the problem has been solved. Because the U.S. is 'on the job'.
Here's one international 'Iraqi thinker' who has some unique insights into the USIII (the U.S. Interests in Iraq), which he shared with a US think-tank recently:
Iraq: vital U.S. interests are at stake, IU visiting professor says
IU News Room [Indiana University], newsinfo.iu.edu
This May, Feisal Istrabadi accompanied his mentor, the 85-year-old Iraqi statesman Adnan Pachachi, to give a lecture at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C.
[...]
Istrabadi said there are at least three reasons success in Iraq is vital to the U.S.:
* Recent gains by U.S. and Iraqi forces against al-Qaeda in Iraq are significant but reversible. Iraq isn't the only front in the fight against terrorism, but it is certainly one front.
* The U.S. clearly has an interest in limiting the influence in the region of Iran, "which is considerable in Iraq at the moment."
* The U.S. has strong economic interest in the region's oil, "which is one of the reasons the U.S. intervened there. Anyone who argues not is being disingenuous."
As if "being disingenuous" is the worse thing you can be -- in today's over-heated hate-filled world?
Monied Interests do have their "interests" to protect, salvage, and rescue afterall.
Starving refugees rarely coincide with those interests. When they do, well make the most of it. Make Lemon-aide.
Monied Interests rarely think (or fund the thinking) much beyond their Monied Interests; rarely do they care to address questions like:
When does Humanity's inhumanity in the name of want, in the name of greed, in the name of Religion -- ever actually stop?
If History is any guide, it kind of looks like -- it doesn't.
When do the world's think-tanks ever think about -- ever do anything about -- the 'wide-world of misery' that continues to endure and sometimes die, right outside the walls of their Rhetorical Towers?
Something tells me, that such thinking -- outside their specific circle of interests -- will not be taking place anytime soon. No matter the endless wars of hate, need, and greed, that the future world's residents must continue to endure -- and far too often, to have to inexplicably die for.
... without the false hope of Humanitarian aid ... without even the Lemon-aid, falling from the skies.